Herbs I have never encountered before, like sawgrass, are piled high onto a plate in the middle of our table and we are encouraged to fill our bowls as the owner explains that it is the mixture of beef bones, aloe vera and ginger that gives pho its distinct taste.

Each visit, I make at least one visit to this vast expanse of Everglades habitat, consisting of sloughs, wet prairies, sawgrass, cypress swamp, and tree islands -- remarkably, just about 15 minutes drive from grandmother's house in Boynton Beach.

After lobbyists pay their nighttime visits, the drilling will start, and some dark, lonely night, through human error or computer breakdown or metal fatigue, the black gunk will belch into the marshy hammocks and over the sawgrass and through the canals.

But I was struck most by the riparian resilience of the land, the sawgrass that extended as far as the eye could see, the hummocks of gum and persimmon and hackberry and oak trees, the seagulls and brown pelicans that sailed over the mouth of a freshwater river flowing into the Gulf.